German state elections in March

@Funky
I think fertility is a very good point.
Kristina Schröder (not to be confused with the Chancellor Schröder I talked about in my previous post), CDU, and former responsible minister, was confronted with the analysis that the measures enacted by the CDU to support mothers were unfit to increase births. Her reaction: It was not her job to increase births, since that was the decision of every individual...

You are also not supposed to force people to have children - but yeah, if people wanted more children the whole of the nation and hence the individuals in it would be better off. And countries like France or Sweden have shown that it is possible to achieve this.

And it really angers me that after not taking care of this our parties now say we need the refugees because we have too few children... And I have this vaguely reasoned feeling that it is somewhat not political correct anymore to fight for more children. Because it is kinda associated with valuing Germanness or something of the sort. Or with the simple idea of wanting a people to prosper. I don't think this is an outright agenda, of course. But just an unintended, perhaps even unnoticed, effect of political individualistic post-national multi-culti culture.

And it is not doing those living in this nation a service.

I also can't hear anymore, while I am talking about things that anger me, when people basically declare the nation as kinda obsolete or a thing of the past just some people who can't move with the times still cling to.

What a nation is and what it stands for has been the only way to have a somewhat functional mass democracy and have somewhat functional source of solidarity for a mass society. There is nothing in sight to replace those important functions.

How a democracy without a nation is a poor democracy is already demonstrated by the EU apparatus.
And Sweden, which at least used to be a shining example of solitary within a nation, inherited this solitary from "Volkgemeinschafts"-ideas, ideas stressing the unity and togetherness of a people. Something today only associated with right-wing nuttery.
 
I also can't hear anymore, while I am talking about things that anger me, when people basically declare the nation as kinda obsolete or a thing of the past just some people who can't move with the times still cling to.

What a nation is and what it stands for has been the only way to have a somewhat functional mass democracy and have somewhat functional source of solidarity for a mass society. There is nothing in sight to replace those important functions.

How a democracy without a nation is a poor democracy is already demonstrated by the EU apparatus.
And Sweden, which at least used to be a shining example of solitary within a nation, inherited this solitary from "Volkgemeinschafts"-ideas, ideas stressing the unity and togetherness of a people. Something today only associated with right-wing nuttery.

I totally agree. For me the civilizational end goal can only be to build a global society in which mankind adheres to values that are conducive to human flourishing. Violations of human rights, like suppressing women or homosexuals, would be globally condemned and pursued, as criminal cases are today within national borders. This would indeed be a world that has superceded the nation as a political and organisationsal entity. But this is a prospect which is centuries away. Currently, the world is far away from achieving anything of the sort. We live in separate moral communities, follow different religions and rules, have vastly different mentalities and living standards. We can't even agree on supra-national standards and aims in Europe, and the European countries are about as similar as it gets.

And yet many people in the West love to pretend that the nation is a relic of the past, that the world is ready now to move together and unite. Those who stress the significance of the nation as an entity in which a society can cultivate and nurture its secular, liberal values are regarded as backwards, or even as egoistic, xenophobic, unsolidary etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. Only by protecting our human values under the shelter of our Western nations will we be able to maintain our cultures, which then can serve as a bastion from which liberal values can spread across the world. We have already seen this happening - in the last decades the West has served as a role model for nations in Eastern Europe, South America, Asia, and even Africa. By neglecting the protection of our values, by being overly self-critical of Western ideas, by indulging in the delusion of multiculturalism, and by giving in to the self-hate which is all too virulent in the West, we are causing our values to be eroded, which is not just too our own detriment, but to that of the whole world. The ideas of multiculturalism and cultural relativism, and the concrete practise of letting our countries be flooded by people who hold values we consider deeply illiberal, are bluring and washing-out the contours of those values and traditions that have led our countries to become so attractive in the first place.

This whole trend, which is unprecedented in modern times, has, as I see it, its roots in two related sources. For one, it is the consequence of drawing the wrong lessons from facism and National Socialism. Instead of stressing the importance of fighting against totalitarianism wherever it occurs and defending human rights and liberal principles, particularly in Germany the lesson that was drawn was that "nationalism" is the root of all evil. Therefore, any idea or political position that emphasizes too strongly the idea of national culture or national values, regardless of whether such values are mainly positive, is frowned upon, and even gets labeled as "right-wing" or "facist".
Second, after many decades of internal peace, people in the West have come to regard our values to be self-evident, and have consequently become decadent and spoiled. We have become detached from the idea that we must continuously fight to maintain our freedoms. We are no longer aware of the great struggles our ancestors went through to achieve the values we benefit from today, or for that matter the struggles of free-thinkers in especially Islamic countries today. We have become lazy and weak, and it is this weakness that Islamists are keenly aware of and which they are harping on relentlessly.

Gradually the tides seem to be turning and more people are starting to wake up. The growing Pegida movement, yesterday's success of the AfD in the local government elections in Hesse, and generally a growing number of admonitory voices in the public sphere calling for greater alertness and warning about the erosion of our values, are developments which can make one hopeful. Yet those from the other side, the regressives, the unteachables, the multiculturalists, who would rather commit national suicide than admit they are wrong, are still strong. Hence we continue to fight a battle of two fronts, which rarely has been a successful endeavour. If we are not able to eradicate the virus of political correctness, regressivism and self-hate, which has spread all across the West, it may soon be too late. It is by no means a matter of course that Europe will survive as the free society it is today.
 
https://www10.wahl-o-mat.de/bw2016/main_app.php
Oh, wahl-o-mat for baden-würtemberg.
Let's see...
  • Animal Protection Party 79,1
  • Pirate party 76,7
  • german community party DKP 75,6
  • The left 73,3
  • Animal Alliance 72,1
  • SPD 67,4
  • Green 67,4
  • The Right 52,3
  • National Democratic Party NPD 50
  • Christian Alliance PBC 48,8
  • FDP 48,8
  • CDU 41,9
  • Rep 41,9
  • AfD 39,5

Definitely 2 blocks in there.
I'm used to that my score for the far right is higher than for the CDU, but that it's now also higher than for the FDP is a bit surprising. And that the christian nutters from the PBC are on a comparable level, that even more.
 
Elections will be tomorrow and if current polls hold the aftermath will give us some entertaining dances within the two federal coalition parties. The CDU is currently expected to end up in second place in Baden-Württemberg, might only get second place in Rheinland-Pfalz (which would be a disastrous showing given polls taken over the previous year) and might hold on to first placei nSachsen-Anhalt. The SPD of course will celebrate topping 10% (15 seems to be out of reach) in two of those states while maybe cliniching first place in Rheinland-Pfalz...

What is that about?
Might have missed that, since I currently miss like 99% of German politics, but I thought the big thinks I'd still notice.

Tarifeinheitsgesetz - happy to talk about it in another thread. Might even do one, I am still rather upset about it...
 
I also can't hear anymore, while I am talking about things that anger me, when people basically declare the nation as kinda obsolete or a thing of the past just some people who can't move with the times still cling to.

What a nation is and what it stands for has been the only way to have a somewhat functional mass democracy and have somewhat functional source of solidarity for a mass society. There is nothing in sight to replace those important functions.

How a democracy without a nation is a poor democracy is already demonstrated by the EU apparatus.

This is very true. You must be the citizen of a community that is your community to be ready to sacrifice something - personal gain - to it. Without civic engagement there can be no functioning democracy, because people will not take part in politics except for short-term personal gain.

And a political community must have well defined borders. The "citizen of the world" justification given by the people who will rather be "cosmopolitan" than members of a community (which is still a location, despite the historically cheaper traveling we now have) is but an excuse to contract out of any social responsibility.

I'm wondering, what is the present situation regarding political/economic corruption in Germany? I have this hypothesis about a connection between corruption and the detachment of political elites from the society they run. It seems to hold true for some EU countries I know better, but I don't know about Germany...
 
Corruption is a little more low key now compared to the chancellor Kohl proudly proclaiming he promised those who bribed him donated large sums to his party to not reveal there identity (and getting away with it) or his then party deputy and current finance minister Schäuble receiving such bribes donations in suitcases and getting away with it. Don't know that is less though. Of course we still have chancellor Schröder who pretty much moved from the chancelor post to a well paying gig with Gazprom without even feeling the need to make it appear a legit post as opposed to cashing in for services rendered :mischief:.

Come to think of it the last 2 chancellors along with atleast some of their ministers were quite unashamedly corrupt though most atleast tried to cover it up a bit. I am sure that all changed abruptly with chancellor Merkel...
 
So, the results are in. From a relative outsider, these things were noticeable:

* The Greens in Baden-Württemberg are really destroying the local SPD. Normally, Green parties are a bit on the fringe and considered a "wasted vote". Here, they have shown that once they get big enough and perform well in actual government, traditional Labour can quickly lose its votes. Compare the results in Baden-Württemberg with neighbouring Rheinland-Pfalz!

* AfD has done well, as was expected. 20-30% of the vote is also where Le Pen, Wilders and UKIP (and Trump?!) are typically operating. Their votes seem to have mainly come from CDU. Vote patterns per age group suggest that CDU could have a difficult feature ahead of itself.

* With the presence of AfD, coalition building will get more difficult. In Baden-Württemberg, it's either Green+CDU (which CDU will not like!), or Green+SPD+FDP, or CDU+SPD+FDP (which the Greens won't like!). In Rheinland-Pfalz, SPD+Green+FDP or SPD+CDU look like the best options. Sachsen-Anhalt looks like a genuine mess, with 40% for Linke+AfD. Will anyone try to form a coalition with them?
 
I wonder what awkward words journalists will come up with to name all those new potential coalitions over the next days.
 
* The Greens in Baden-Württemberg are really destroying the local SPD. Normally, Green parties are a bit on the fringe and considered a "wasted vote". Here, they have shown that once they get big enough and perform well in actual government, traditional Labour can quickly lose its votes. Compare the results in Baden-Württemberg with neighbouring Rheinland-Pfalz!

Yes, but you should not ignore all the former CDU vote that went to the Greens. The Baden-Württemberg Greens are politically much closer to the center than the national party. Kretschmann is one of Merkel's biggest fans and probably shares more values with her than the Baden-Württemberg CDU. Over the last years he seems to have become a credible alternative for conservative voters.
 
It is certainly fortunate that the CDU and the SPD have been castigated for their open border madness.

* AfD has done well, as was expected. 20-30% of the vote is also where Le Pen, Wilders and UKIP (and Trump?!) are typically operating. Their votes seem to have mainly come from CDU. Vote patterns per age group suggest that CDU could have a difficult feature ahead of itself.

While the AfD is indeed comparable to UKIP, it is far from Front National, and has nothing in common with the American Republicans. As I posted in the other thread, I wouldn't consider AfD or UKIP "right-wing" at all. All they do is take a common sense stance on immigration policy, which has led to an extensive defamation campaign against them in the left-leaning media.

Sachsen-Anhalt looks like a genuine mess, with 40% for Linke+AfD. Will anyone try to form a coalition with them?
CDU is more or less forced to form a coalition with the AfD, since they will never go together with the leftists. Actually the CDU and the AfD are not even that far apart, despite Merkel's despotism overshadowing that fact.
 
I'm not so sure CDU will want to form a coalition with AfD. It is hard to negotiate with the AfD on the state level, when their main policy point is mostly played out on the national and European level. Typically, parties are also reluctant to work together with new political movements. In the Netherlands, most of the new parties (LPF is the prime example, with smaller issues for Wilders' PVV and 50+) have suffered from internal fights/defections. A party that goes from 0 to success needs to find parliamentarians quite quickly and does not have the several year training/screening process of the traditional parties. Add to that that anti-establishment parties attract unusual and often incompatible candidates.
If the new party has internal struggles, you don't want to be in a coalition with them.

But we will see, the anti-Linke sentiment is also strong.
 
A party that goes from 0 to success needs to find parliamentarians quite quickly and does not have the several year training/screening process of the traditional parties.
I agree, and it is also true that the CDU will not want to form a coalition with the AfD, not least because they would lose face after taking part in the defamation campaign against them. But the election results really don't give them any choice. They will never work together with the leftist party - that is simply out of the question.
 
I agree, and it is also true that the CDU will not want to form a coalition with the AfD, not least because they would lose face after taking part in the defamation campaign against them. But the election results really don't give them any choice. They will never work together with the leftist party - that is simply out of the question.

They could go for a CDU+SPD+Green coalition and kick the can 5 years down the road. It'd be a mockery of the election result, but they can hope no-one will remember.
 
I agree, and it is also true that the CDU will not want to form a coalition with the AfD, not least because they would lose face after taking part in the defamation campaign against them.
That goes both ways.

They will never work together with the leftist party - that is simply out of the question.
As much as a coalition with AfD is out of the question. This is akin to the SPD forming a coalition with WASG/Left in 2005. A coalition now would mean surrendering to the entire AfD platform which is specifically geared against the CDU and their leader herself.

Looks like the state is heading for a minority administration.
 
Looks like the state is heading for a minority administration.
How would a minority government differ from a coalition government? Wouldn't it still need to form de facto coalitions to get anything done?
 
Minority governments are common in other european counties, but I get this impression that germans are generally averse to such solutions?
 
Glorious results those of the AfD. Out of the three big countries of the EU, Germany was until yesterday an invulnerable fortress for the anti-EU movement. Now the german fortress is beginning to fall. Celebrate.
 
They could go for a CDU+SPD+Green coalition and kick the can 5 years down the road. It'd be a mockery of the election result, but they can hope no-one will remember.

That is the most likely outcome.
There is no way the CDU will even contemplate a coalition that includes the Left or AfD.

They have railed against the Left for years and do not consider them to be worthy of being part in any government, in fact, they have attacked SPD and Greens whenever they didn't reject a coalition with the Left.
When it comes to the AfD, they simply cannot tolerate that party in any way. It's a threat to their own base. Their goals for the future are to regain the votes they lost on the right, not get the AfD to become an accepted party. It's one thing to regain protest voters (and that is what most of them are at this moment, according to the research done after the elections), it's something entirely different to regain voters from an established party.

It's utterly hilarious how the CDU tries to spin these election into a victory for Merkel. They have come to the point where they even include votes for the Left as being in favour of Merkel's course of action. You really have to sink quite far to drop to such a level. Merkel is pretty much the sole reason why the CDU won't lead the government in two states and will have a hard time establishing one in the third.
 
Tarifeinheitsgesetz - happy to talk about it in another thread. Might even do one, I am still rather upset about it...

3 sentence summary maybe?


Regarding the election results: Normally I'd say it's time to emigrate now, but I already did. But if I hadn't, the irony of the situation would kill me :D.
Let's hope the next round of elections will be better.
Can't believe the results in Sachsen-Anhalt. All 3 left wing partys together <33%, and liberals not in the parliament (only checked the preliminary results, too lazy, maybe that changed in the meantime).
 
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